Call it the summer doldrums or whatever you wish. The truth is there hasn’t been much political blog activity—from any of us.
It’s not that there is a dearth of news to report; between killings by cops, killings of cops, terrorist attacks, political accusations, political promises that border on fantasy, e-mail scandals and plagiarized speeches, there’s more than enough to go around. But somehow, we’ve become inured, victims of a malady we can only identify as scandal fatigue for lack of a better term.
But LouisianaVoice, with the help of a couple of volunteer researchers, is working on a project that should generate considerable readership interest—unless, of course, readers are also victims of the summertime lethargy that seems to be at least somewhat contagious.
But we’d be less than honest if we didn’t admit we get pretty discouraged when we expose wrongdoing—some of it even criminal in nature—on the part of elected and appointed officials and nothing is done about it.
What more needs to be done, for example, than to point out the illegal use of campaign funds for such personal use as season tickets to sporting events, luxury car leases and even paying ethics violation fines and personal federal income taxes from campaign funds? Yet, nothing is done.
What more needs to be done than to publish official investigative reports of a state trooper having sex in his patrol car while on duty to bring severe disciplinary action down on that officer?
It took LouisianaVoice weeks and many stories before official action was finally taken against a state trooper who went home to sleep during his shift so that he could work his second job the next day before he was finally fired. And even though we revealed that his supervisor allowed this practice to go on for years, the supervisor was simply transferred—even after we published audio recordings of that same supervisor refusing to accept a citizen’s complaint after he had denied refusing the complaint.
After we ran a story about a legislator, who made thousands of dollars by purchasing stock in a company he knew was going to be approved for a major program with the Department of Education, that legislator was re-elected.
When we outed Frederick Tombar III, the $260,000 per year director of the Louisiana Housing Corporation, over his sexually explicit emails sent to two female employees, he promptly resigned only to turn up at Cornerstone Government Affairs, a consulting company headed by former Louisiana Commissioners of Administration Mark Drennan and Paul Rainwater.
https://louisianavoice.com/category/campaign-contributions/page/9/
When we ran the story of a clerk in Fourth Judicial District Court in Monroe with ties to powerful attorney and banking interests who was failing to show up for work, both the Louisiana Attorney General the Office of Inspector General punted on their investigations.
When a north Louisiana contractor sued the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development over attempts by DOTD employees to extort payoff money from him, he won more than $20 million. Instead of paying up as it should, however, the state simply said it doesn’t have the money to pay the contractor who was forced into bankruptcy by the department’s criminal activity. Yet, no one at DOTD was fired, much less prosecuted.
Department of Public Safety Deputy Undersecretary Jill Boudreaux twerked the system by taking an incentive buyout for early retirement that netted her an extra $59,000. She promptly promoted herself and came back to work the next day at a salary bump. Ordered to repay the $59,000 by then Commissioner of Administration Angele Davis, she never did.
But a caseworker for the understaffed and overworked Office of Children and Family Services was arrested with all the appropriate posturing and chest-thumping by law enforcement officials—including State Police—for payroll fraud after allegedly falsifying reports on monthly in-home visits with children in foster care.
The lesson here is obvious: if you’re politically connected, you can scarf off $59,000 with no repercussions but if you’re a lowly civil servant striving to meet impossible work demands brought about by budgetary cuts, you’re SOL. It’s not that we condone the payroll falsification, but justice should that should be administered evenly and blindly—but somehow never is.
The stories we have written about the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry and what the board does to dentists to destroy their practices and their very lives are horrific. Some of the investigative tactics and the retributions against defenseless dentists are sadistic at best and criminal at worst. Yet the board is allowed to continue its practices unchecked.
And as recently as May 2, we have the announcement from Gov. John Bel Edwards of the appointment of TERRENCE LOCKETT of Baton Rouge to the Louisiana Auctioneers Licensing Board. His appointment was made despite his being ordered in 2013 to pay $600 in penalties for his failure to file lobbying expenditure reports from March-December 2011 and his second-offense DWI in April 2014, which was reduced to a first-offense DWI.
http://gov.louisiana.gov/news/gov-edwards-announces-boards-and-commissions-appointments-5-2
By now, you’ve probably detected a trend.
It’s more than a little frustrating to see these transgressions reported, to know they are seen by those in a position to do something, and yet see these same ones in charge do nothing—or do so little as to make any discipline meaningless.
LouisianaVoice over the next few days will examine ethics fines that have gone uncollected for years, critical legislative audits of state agencies about which nothing seems to get done, and campaign contributions and lobbying activity that fortify the positions of special interests while diminishing to virtual insignificance the influence and interests of Louisiana’s citizens.
And nothing gets done.
Louisiana Voice 
We appreciate and are grateful Tom for all the work you’ve done.
I have been saying this for years. It isn’t just Louisiana. We see the same thing nationally. There will be a huge expose story for about one day with all of the evidence, people will rant and rave….then, that is the end of that. It makes me mad and this has been going on for years. I do no know what it takes to make people uphold the law. But, the more we tolerate this, the more we become an immoral, lawless land. Thank you for continuing to show the light on our dark underbelly!
Get ’em, Tom.
Thank you for your diligent and professional work.
Thank you, Tom. Please keep-up the good work.
Thanks for all you do Tom, I know it must be disheartening for you to do all this work and see nothing done. I don’t profess to know what it will take for people to wake up, but I hope they do, and soon.
Great article, Tom! You’re EXACTLY right on “scandal fatigue” setting in. It happened with me in February of this year, and I gave consideration to just shutting my blog down. Then I thought of all the people who have endured WAY, WAY more than I endured in observing state government corruption before Bobby Jindal Teagued me (and that didn’t take long because the Auction Board corruption has always, and continues, to run rampant, yet it pales in comparison to the Cosmetology Board or the Dentistry Board).
You encouraged me not to get too down and that it happens to all of us. I know C. B. used to say, “Robert, there’s only so many ways I can rephrase the same things over and over,” and he would take a hiatus from posting when he sent me an email like that.
I have come to the conclusion that we have to often accept “silent victories.” What I mean by that is something like the absolutely mind-boggling behind-the-scenes campaign orchestrated by the auctioneer “good ‘ole boy network” for Gov. Edwards to rescind Rev. Freddie Lee Phillips. Why were they so adamant that they wanted him off the board? Two reasons: First, the board, representative of the auction industry as a whole, is unequivocally racist. Second, the material presented at this one single website link: http://www.auctioneer-la.org/past_problems.htm.
Keep up all the hard work, Tom, and rest assured, you’re getting more “silent victories” than you can ever imagine!!
Tom, you have done so much for our state by your expose’ reporting. You have earned our respect and our gratitude for what you done and I so hope you will continue to do so. If nothing else has come out of this political season, Trump and Sanders have put politicians at all levels on notice that their constituents are sick and tired and won’t take anymore of this “business as usual” conduct. If they dare to continue to ignore, tolerate, and participate in wrongdoing they do so at great peril. We will replace them, we will elect and appoint honest officials, and we will hold accountable those guilty of wrongdoing.
You Tom are a beacon of hope to us. Please continue to serve so ably.
Mr. Aswell,
I read every post you do because I want to know what is really happening here in Louisiana. Your dedication to finding out the truth about our state officials back door goings on allows me to feel secure in how I vote and the letters I write. I rarely get a response, and if I do it is a form letter thanking me for my support! So they get the letters but never read them, otherwise they would know it wasn’t support I sent. School starts soon, and like you it is hard not to get to feeling frustrated and defeated. Once again teachers will exhaust themselves giving their all to actually teach children and support their becoming intelligent citizens who know truth and facts are needed make their own decisions. Sometimes I want to just drive to Canada. Sometimes I hesitate for a moment to fight a battle to do what is right for my students because I am just tired of being forced to focus on test prep and test scores by people who are not educators. Those who blame teachers for all societies ills. They are destroying our public schools, and like those you write about, they take no blame and people believe the lies they tell about teachers. Mr. Aswell, there are times that I think of the battles you wage and those like you trying to get people to listen to the truth! You base your writing on solid research and facts and observations that can be measured and supported with evidence. Please know that when I read what you, Mike Deshotels and Dr. Mercedes Schneider have so meticulously researched I feel hope. When you all put yourselves out there so all the yahoos can take a moment from watching the Kardashians, to tell you you’re wrong, I am so impressed you keep going! You are making a difference. Your efforts are not wasted. They say a few of our students may realize how hard their teachers worked, but not until many years later; and most never will realize it. I hope that you can find energy and inspiration knowing there are people all over who know of your hard work and dedication to share the truth. You may not see the fruits of your labors yet, but you have already made a difference for many of us.
I want to believe this. But the cynic in me thinks that the party or politics will block anything these individuals may accomplish. The corruption is so rampant that it would that more than an individual to get through the stonewalling.
Let’s not forget the Edmonson retirement grab bill that was stopped in its tracks by a laser-focused ray of sunshine from LouisianaVoice. Your successes have been many. Not to mention the important and unending drumbeat of revelations of corruption and abuses by the jindalistas and others. It’s important to keep up top-of-mind awareness even if it does not seem to have immediate results.
You make a difference and the state of Louisiana owes you a debt of gratitude for your tireless work to root out the information on corruption, overreach and abuses, and publish it courageously and unapologetically. Never give up and never feel unappreciated or give in to the thought that you (and we) are tilting at windmills. Your work is important. You have broken ground with your blog and there’s no going back to the dark days where we all get steamrollered and don’t know until it’s too late.
Your blog has been quite the education, thank you.